


On the Inside

by bluestalking



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Confined/Caged, Insanity, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, kink bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:42:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestalking/pseuds/bluestalking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Master,” he says, hand to the barrier, “all I want is to hold you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for "confined/caged" square in kink bingo 2012. Set following an alternate ending to "The Drums of War" where the Master _does_ wind up with the Doctor in the TARDIS, instead of getting shot.

“No one understands why I must keep you,” the Doctor says. He says this a lot, and all these other things, pacing back and forth in a room which must make him feel as though he’s violated the Tardis nearly as badly as the Master did. “I can’t go back anymore—you see, they think I’ve betrayed them, keeping you alive. _Wanting_ you alive.”

 _Think,_ the Master repeats in his head. There is no _think_ about it. The worst thing about all of this is not the losing or the living—it’s being still mad and realizing that the person trying to save you against your will is madder and crueler and doesn’t even see it that way.

“But how could I let you die?” the Doctor asks. The Master clenches his jaw, his fingers tapping unconsciously, a small, desperate, angry motion. He hates pain. He hates the sound of drums that the Doctor’s _rescue_ cannot abate. The drumbeat booms and laughs and bellows and fills him from the core, denser and denser until he’s shaking with it. But he cannot leave the box, he cannot throw his arms wide or scream at the world until it buckles, and when he flees the drums there is only _this_ waiting for him.

“Master,” the Doctor says gently. “Perhaps tomorrow I can let you out. You will promise, won’t you, not to do any more harm?”

Tomorrow means nothing. They may never see tomorrow, may visit a hundred thousand other things instead. The Master laughs, close to weeping. It grows harder to bare his teeth every time the Doctor speaks to him. 

The Doctor, who now looks disappointed. Crushed, beneath a boot. Wounded to the soul.

“Master,” he says, hand to the barrier, “all I want is to hold you. To be with you. To be your companion.”

That isn’t true at all, the Master thinks. The Doctor wants only to be the Doctor. He wants to give everyone their fix, so that they need him for the rest of their lives if he’s only in theirs for a day. Needing the Master, in his loathsome, gibbering way, doesn’t change that a bit. It only throws him off his stride, makes him more delusional. It only makes him frightening.

“I _will_ learn how to take the noise away,” the Doctor promises, his eyes too wide and not enough earnest. “No more drumbeats. I’ll make you well. I’ll _care_ for you.”

It’s the same every day. The Master never answers. He feels as though he can’t, as though the box sucks up his voice and tears it into bits like paper. He feels as though it couldn’t possibly help. He screamed at first, obscenities and threats and glorious plots, and none of it mattered. None of it changed anything. The Doctor was gentle enough, but the Doctor’s gentleness is a horror story. It whispers lullabies while it cuts you apart.

Of course humanity took well to becoming the Toclafane, the Master thinks. The Doctor is a god, and a god fancies his people in his own image.

The Master knows a great deal of gods, those of the ruling order, and he has never tried to become _them._ He has served them and betrayed them and tried to escape them, he has mocked them and made pantomimes, but he has never become them. It’s always a vile game for him. But gods have no sense of humor. They believe in their own goodness, and that makes them awful.

The Doctor sighs, stroking the barrier where the Master’s face would be.

“We’ll go somewhere quiet,” the Doctor says. “I promise. We’ll go somewhere so beautiful and kind that your hearts won’t hold this malice anymore. I’ll be able to let you out. You’ll be all right.”

The Master has given up taunting him, asking what all this is for. The answers only cut to the bone and leave him feeling like an animal. He _is_ one, in a trap. 

“You don’t speak to me anymore,” the Doctor says, mirroring his thoughts. “Are you in that much despair? Are you so lonely you can’t see a friend when one is standing right in front of you?”

“Let me out,” the Master says sweetly—no, he means to say it sweetly. It’s only hoarse and flat. “Let me out so I can show you how lonely I am.”

The Doctor hesitates. “Do you miss it? Touching people?” he asks.

“Of course,” the Master hisses.

“Do you—miss _me?”_ the Doctor asks, and then waves his hand. “No—I’m sorry. I know better than to ask. You’re too angry with me to miss me. But I’ll win you over.”

“You’re all I have,” the Master says, honest and misleading.

The Doctor looks at him, fond and distant and damaged, _so damaged,_ the Master thinks, but somehow he is the one holding the key.

“I’m glad you know that,” the Doctor says. “Don’t worry. We’ll be there soon. I just have to find the right place.” He shifts his weight. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

 _You could touch me,_ the Master nearly says, and in a moment he can imagine with all his senses being released and held down and touched and stretched. It’s revolting. It’s desperate prostitution. It’s only another prison, but it’s an _other_ prison. If that’s better or worse, he doesn’t know.

In another moment, which is unbearable, he almost means it.

Before he speaks, though, or decides for certain that he won’t again this time, the Doctor says, “Maybe tomorrow,” in a final sort of voice. 

_Don’t,_ the Master tells him, his whole mind roaring and dragging him down. _Please._ But he won’t say that, not even after the Doctor is gone, in his childish shoes and his spiked-up hair. The Tardis will still listen, if the Doctor won’t. She hates him. He already knows--she keeps him in his place, and reports his every murmur. 

There is not much room to move, but the Master keeps still.


End file.
